Research on Reproductive Rights and Justice
Applications for Fall 2025 are closed for this project.
This project will have two facets:
1) Some students will work with the Center on Reproductive Rights and Justice (in collaboration with Arneta Rogers, the executive director, and me). CRRJ brings together organizers, advocates, scholars, and students; it focuses primarily on reproductive justice issues, which involve group based inequalities in the field of reproduction broadly defined. CRRJ's current focus is on state criminalization of pregnancy, and state intervention in families of color through the family regulation system. Students may be assigned to work on the social media team, or on research projects involving family policing, the mapping of efforts to criminalize pregnancy and more.
2) Some students will focus on my current research project, which examines social movement activity aimed at rebuilding reproductive rights and attacking structural sources of reproductive inequality in abortion restrictive states. The primary focus of the research is in Missouri (St. Louis and Kansas City), with secondary focus on Texas, Ohio, and Kansas. This project may also incorporate experience from pro-abortion organizing in the UK and Ireland and in Latin America, which has useful parallels to (and discontinuities with) US experience.
Role: Students working with CRRJ will: provide social media content that involves publicizing the Center's work (they may also attend and provide coverage of live events); lift up research and content from scholars and partner organizations; and perform research related to CRRJ's family policing and criminalization projects.
Students involved in my individual research project will 1) perform AI assisted transcription and 2) analyze audiofiles of interviews of organizational leaders and write memoranda on their findings; they will also 3) conduct specific research projects on specific campaign, state history, parallel movements in other states and more, as needed.
Qualifications: Required: research skills and experience; interest in reproductive rights and justice interest in studying social movements that aim to influence the law; ability to identify conceptual themes in personal and institutional narratives.
Desirable but not essential: some exposure to any of the following topics: reproductive rights, social determinants of health disparities, social movement theory, feminist or critical race theory. Experience in social movement organizations or non-profits focused on gender or racial justice, or other forms of inequality.
Additional: Students interested in doing social media work for CRRJ should have some experience with creating or curating content for professional or organizational social media platforms.
Day-to-day supervisor for this project: Arneta Rogers (for CRRJ project), Staff Researcher
Hours: 3-5 hrs
Off-Campus Research Site: Because I am on sabbatical this year the default for my individual project will be to meet on zoom. But I hope to arrange at least one or two in-person meetings -- this will depend on how well students' schedules coincide with each other. For CRRJ, there are likely to be some in person meetings and some zoom meetings. For both roles, much if not all of the actual research can be done remotely.
Social Sciences